


favorite views of an autumn afternoon

by tangentiallly



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:08:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21680707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangentiallly/pseuds/tangentiallly
Summary: Kit picked up the taxi key from her mailbox left by Jacques, and drove it to Hotel Denouement to meet two friends.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	favorite views of an autumn afternoon

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: I don't own ASOUE

Kit retrieved the taxi key from the mailbox at her apartment. It was buried under a pile of letters that were mostly advertisements. Then she headed towards the location written with Jacques’ handwriting, on a piece of paper under the key - it was two streets away from her apartment.

The taxi was parked under a tall tree, and reddish brown leaves scattered across the windshield when Kit found it on this chilly November evening. She picked one of the leaves up, examined it for a bit, before putting it back down again, and then picked another one. After a few moments of consideration and admiring the colors and shape of the leaf, she stuffed it into the pocket of her trench coat. It would make a nice bookmark. Her focus reshifted back to the leaves on the windshield again, landing on one that might’ve looked a little like a bat if one was imaginative. Beatrice would like it, she thought. Beatrice was imaginative. She was about to put it in the pocket with the other leaf, but then hesitated for a moment, and took her commonplace book out instead, and carefully put both leaves into the commonplace book.

She unlocked the taxi, and climbed into it. Jacques had left his light jacket in the backseat, so Kit assumed that it was probably already into autumn when he put the keys in her mailbox and he had switched to a warmer coat. She stared at it for a moment, and reached out to grab it and placed it on top of her lap, before starting the engine.

She hadn’t seen Jacques for a while in person, and while mostly Kit liked to act like that’s fine, it was moments like this, feeling some kind of lump in her throat with her brother’s jacket on her lap, that she couldn’t suppress the feeling of missing him. She reached a hand into the pocket of the jacket and found a receipt from a nearby ice cream shop that she recognized as one Jacques and Bertrand liked to visit together. There was a half-finished 5 by 5 tic-tac-toe game on the back of the receipt. Kit frowned, analyzing the boxes marked so far and criticizing the strategies they’d used in her head, before putting the receipt into her commonplace book also.

She drove, ignoring the first stop sign she saw, and headed towards Hotel Denouement.

* * *

Beatrice and Dewey were in the underwater library when Kit arrived, arguing about some obscure poetry while they were climbing on ropes, books in hand, shelving them back into the correct places. Kit surveyed the large library, easily finding several unused ladders nearby.

_ Typical _ , she thought, rolling her eyes yet undeniably fond at the same time.

“I got you two new bookmarks,” she announced, and Beatrice and Dewey turned to look at her from their ropes.

“First one to drop down win to the floor wins!” Dewey said immediately, but Beatrice was already sliding down, way ahead of him.

“I win!” She grinned victoriously at Dewey as she landed, before dashing forwards to Kit, holding Kit’s hand in a dramatic manner and raising it up to her lips, and then gave Kit’s fingertips a quick kiss. “M’lady.”

Kit raised an eyebrow, “What books have you been reading now?”

Beatrice laughed. “It’s actually for Gustav’s new film.” She looked at Kit’s commonplace book curiously, “What bookmarks have you got?”

Kit opened her commonplace book and took out the bat-shaped leaf, her own leaf, and the receipt with the tic-tac-toe game. Beatrice’s eyes lit up, and so did Dewey’s, who was now also arriving at Kit’s side.

“A bat!” Beatrice beamed. “This is lovely. Thanks! Oh, this other leaf is beautiful too, love the colors … now we have matching bookmark leaves!”

“Oh, this is great thank you!” Dewey said excitedly. “I’m going to study this and beat Bertrand at the game next time.”

Kit smiled back at both of them, helplessly fond at their enthusiasm and quite proud at herself for knowing them well enough to know what each of them would like best. “No problem,” she said, and then added. “So what’s this poetry thing you’re arguing about? Tell me about it and I’ll decide who’s right.”

Beatrice and Dewey immediately tried to explain the situation to her, talking over one another at the same time, and Kit held a hand up. “Wait. Is this going to be long? If so, I propose we all make some tea first before diving in.”

“Oh, very long,” Dewey said immediately. “I have so many arguments that they could fill up a 13 pages in a notebook.”

“Then prepare to lose,” Beatrice said immediately. “For mine is definitely more than 13 pages.”

“13 is just a figurative way of phrasing it, it’s not actually 13 pages,” Dewey retorted. “Plus, more doesn’t always mean correct.”

“That is true, however, it doesn’t matter because in this case, I’m the correct one,” Beatrice smiled sweetly. “But tea first, shall we?”

They headed towards the kitchen.

* * *

They made tea, and then spent the next two hours talking about poetry as Beatrice and Dewey took turns listing their points and Kit inserted in some comments along the way. The tea tasted hot and bitter, just the way Kit liked it, and she was once reminded again of her brother saying tea should be as bitter as wormwood and as sharp as a two-edged sword. Thinking about that made her zone out for a moment, lost in thought, Beatrice and Dewey’s voices fading into the background.

Kit wasn’t sure how long she’d lost focus, but then the next moment - or perhaps many moments later - she blinked and found both Beatrice and Dewey looking at her. “Sorry, zoned out for a moment.”

Beatrice smiled understandingly, “it’s fine.” Dewey helped pour some more tea into all of their cups.

“You know, maybe you should take us out for a ride on the taxi after this,” Beatrice suggested. “Get some cool November air while we cruise through The City at high speed.”

“Nothing like cruising through The City at high speed,” Kit agreed, smiling. “Especially with the thrill of passing over cops trying to pull me over.”

“That’s the spirit,” Dewey said cheerfully. “Can I drive also? I mean, I’ve never driven before, but I made several fake licenses for both of my brothers so I got a few spare ones to use.”

Beatrice and Kit looked at each other, and Beatrice shrugged, “Sure, why not?”

“Of course, and I can teach you too,” Kit offered. “I’m a great driving instructor.”

Dewey beamed, “Brilliant!”

They were both smiling at her, so bright and lovely and Kit felt her wistfulness of missing her brothers, while still existing, was pushed to a spot further back in her mind, as Beatrice and Dewey’s infectious smiles warmed up everything around them.

She smiled back, and took a sip of her tea.

**Author's Note:**

> [come say hi on tumblr](https://beatricebidelaire.tumblr.com)


End file.
